June 21, 1999 - Mike Yost recently testified before Congress on the trade embargo issue. Yost is the president of the American Soybean Association and farms near Murdoch, Minnesota. He says Congress should consider the potential gains for struggling American farmers.
June 22, 1999 - As Minnesota logs month after month of historically low unemployment, the jobless rate in the twin cities hovers at even lower levels. The metropolitan area has consistently posted the lowest unemployment rate among major cities since August of 1997. Last month it was just one-point-six percent. As Bill Catlin reports, the low unemployment rate is changing the balance of power between companies and workers.
June 22, 1999 - A lot of people in North Minneapolis are hoping the good times have finally begun to roll. The city is demolishing rundown public housing to make way for new market rate homes. There's a plan to clean up the riverfront. And a few months ago, the area won federal designation as an Empowerment Zone, allowing people interested in doing business there to apply for grants and credits.
June 22, 1999 - Mainstreet Radio’s Leif Enger reports that the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe are looking ahead at a future without gaming. Like many Indian tribes, the Mille Lacs Ojibwe got an enormous boost from gaming in the 1990s. Its two casinos brought in millions of dollars annually, and hundreds of new jobs. Now the Band is trying to broaden its economy.
June 24, 1999 - University of Minnesota men's basketball coach Clem Haskins may soon end his 13 year tenture at the school. A copyright report published in today's Star Tribune newspaper quotes two sources close to the university who say they expect Haskins to resign or be dismissed within three days. Haskins is at the center of a university investigation into allegations of academic fraud and mishandling of sexual harassment complaints against players. Dave Mona is president of the University's AluMinnesotai Association. He says reaction to the allegations has grown more intense in recent days.
June 25, 1999 - The Minneapolis' city council has approved a resolution supporting an effort to build a new stadiumto try and keep the Twins in town. But it was significantly watered down during a rancorous debate that lasted nearly four hours. The debate over the resolution led to a battle over whether a portion of new taxes for a new baseball stadium should help finance affordable housing.
June 28, 1999 - Organizers of a petition drive in St. Paul say they have more than twice as many signatures as necessary to put a new ballpark funding question on the ballot this fall. But many questions still surround the subject -- including the finances of Major League Baseball and the viability of small market teams like the Minnesota Twins. Mayor Norm Coleman, who is spearheading the stadium push in St. Paul, says without some reform in professional baseball, building a ballpark doesn't make sense.
June 28, 1999 - The Minnesota Corrections Department has a new plan to offer inmates access to higher education. Administrators at the department cut the program earlier this year because it was funded with tax dollars. Now the program will be paid for with money inmates pay to use prison telephones. Minnesota Corrections Commissioner Sheryl Ramstad Hvass has been fighting to have the program restored.
June 28, 1999 - Mainstreet Radio's Cara Hetland reports on a product using processed cow blood as a blood substitute. It is in final trial stages and already in use in veterinarian clinics.
June 29, 1999 - The defeat of gun control legislation in the U-S House recently came as no suprise to gun policy expert Tom Diaz. In his new book Making a Killing: The Business of Guns in America, Diaz says a better strategy would be to challenge gun manufacturers on their marketing of increasingly deadlier products. Diaz comes to gun policy from the perspective of someone who loved guns. From his boyhood scouting experience in Mississippi, to his military service, to collecting guns as an adult, Diaz says there were always guns in his life. Then his law degree landed him a job with the House Crime subcommittee.